Analyze how the rise of big business, consumer culture, and mass media transformed American life in the 1920s, including the automobile, credit, radio and movies, and the Harlem Renaissance (GSE SSUSH16, Domain 4).

What this topic is asking

SSUSH16 covers how consumer culture and mass media transformed American life in the 1920s. You need the new consumer economy (the automobile, credit, advertising), the rise of radio and movies, the changing role of women, and the Harlem Renaissance. This is a Domain 4 topic, and questions often use an advertisement, a photograph, or a chart of consumer goods.

The consumer economy

Mass media and a national culture

Radio brought music, sports, and news into living rooms, while movies (especially after sound arrived) made Hollywood the center of entertainment and created nationally famous celebrities.

Changing social life

The decade loosened older social rules. Women had won the vote with the Nineteenth Amendment, and some young women known as flappers adopted shorter hair, new fashions, and more public freedom, symbolizing changing roles. New leisure, dance, and music marked a more modern, urban culture, though these changes also provoked a backlash (covered in the next dot point).

The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance gave Black artists national influence and helped spread jazz, the decade's signature music, across racial and regional lines.

Try this

Q1. Explain how the automobile and credit shaped the economy of the 1920s. [2]

• Cue. Mass production made the automobile affordable and boosted related industries, while buying on credit (installment plans) let families purchase cars and appliances by paying over time, driving a consumer boom.

Q2. Explain the significance of the Harlem Renaissance. [2]

• Cue. It was a flowering of African American art, literature, and music in Harlem that celebrated Black culture and identity (writers such as Langston Hughes, the spread of jazz) and gave Black artists national influence.